Big 12 teams can find some consolation even as they take turns giving and receiving body blows in the college basketball version of a steel cage match.

The NCAA Tournament men’s selection committee is acutely aware of the conference and is already taking notes. Committee chairman Ron Wellman acknowledged this week that the Big 12 is a different sort of animal with less than two months to Selection Sunday.

“The committee reviews what their regular-season format is,” Wellman said. “The Big 12, they play a double round-robin. I don’t know of another conference that does that.”

When the committee looks at most conferences, it breaks down teams that play opponents just once in the regular season as opposed to twice and the quality of those opponents, Wellman said.

In the Big 12, everybody plays everybody, home and home, 18 games. This season, the impact has been clear.

Iowa State and Baylor compiled solid top-10 résumés in nonconference play. Now each is under .500 after struggling starts in the league. Baylor (1-4) and Iowa State (2-3) have each lost three straight conference games.

“Everybody in the Big 12 is a good team,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said.

Yes, the conference is simply that tough, maybe as deep as it has ever been, including when it had 12 members until 2011.

The conference is ranked No. 1 this season in overall RPI — up from fifth last season — and strength of schedule.

Teams have won 79.7 percent of their nonconference games and nearly broke even against Top 25 opponents.

Jerry Palm of CBSSports .com and Joe Lunardi of ESPN each projected seven Big 12 teams into the NCAA Tournament this week. None was on the bubble, although that could change.

If those predictions hold true, the Big 12 would have two more teams in the tournament than last season and equal its all-time best total, set in 2009-10.

“Certainly we’ve had more talented players as a group,” Texas coach Rick Barnes said. “But in terms of quality teams, without question it’s by far the best of my 16 years in the Big 12. It’s really probably not even close.”

Texas has contributed to the depth of the Big 12, bouncing back from missing the NCAA Tournament to start 4-2 in league play.

While Texas Tech won’t make the NCAA Tournament, the Red Raiders are much more competitive under coach Tubby Smith. Last-place TCU gave No. 25 Oklahoma a scare Wednesday.

“With so many quality teams,” Kansas State coach Bruce Weber said, “you’ve got to be ready to play.”

Admittedly, it’s in the best interest of coaches to lobby for their conference and talk about how every game is like a trek up Everest. A little politicking now might bear fruit come March.

At the same time, most Big 12 coaches sound as if they’re in survival mode, clinging to the one game at a time cliché because they really don’t want to look ahead.

Oklahoma State’s Travis Ford recalled being quizzed about the strength of the Big 12 after his team’s narrow loss Saturday at league-leading Kansas.

Rather than focus on RPI or head-to-head numbers, he kept coming back to the round-robin format.

“That’s what makes it the toughest schedule in America, and what makes it the toughest league in America is we have to play everybody twice,” Ford said.

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